 Completely Hollywood (abridged)
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[Insert appropriate movie tralier music here.]
In a world where Hollywood fantasy always trumps reality, The Reduced Shakespeare Company is out to take on the myth merchants and kick movieland butt! Dominic Conti IS The Writer, Reed Martin IS The Director and Austin Tichenor IS The Actor (except when it's Michael Faulkner) in Completely Hollywood (abridged) - now playing at a Loretto-Hilton Center near you! Rated PG-13 - Pretty Good if you're thirteen. Those under the influence of film criticism will not be admitted.
Having already taken on Shakespeare, the Bible and the history of America, it was inevitable that the former street theatre group known as The Reduced Shakespeare Company would turn their high-speed comedy machine loose on the film industry and the mindset behind it. Scripted by RSC co-founders Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor, Completely Hollywood (abridged) is pretty much what you'd expect: a barrage of rapid-fire send-ups of nearly a century of movies, endlessly inventive sight gags, a bit of audience participation and even a soft-pedaled political message. There are enough inside gags to keep the dedicated film buffs happy but not so many as to alienate the more casual moviegoer, and the whole thing moves along at such breakneck speed that the occasional dud joke is quickly forgotten and easily forgiven.
The story that anchors all this inspired foolishness is pretty simple. A self-indulgent Writer (Dominic Conti) wants to make A Statement about Hollywood's cultural imperialism, but can't seem to do it in fewer than 500 pages. This puts him at odds with a manipulative Director (Reed Martin) who's mostly interested in zombies and explosions and a preening Actor (Austin Tichenor, alternating with Michael Faulkner in some performances) who's mostly interested in his Oscar acceptance speech. Their numerous clashes allow Martin and Tichenor to get in plenty of solid satirical jabs at the crassness of an industry in which, as Wilson Mizner once noted, "they almost made a great picture, but they caught it in time."
Amazingly enough, the film is made, and in the second act you get to not only see it but also - if you've made the mistake of sitting in the front row - appear in it. In the Writer's movie, the Actor goes on a Quest to escape Hollywood, only to find out that it, like Chicken Man and the Psi Corps, is everywhere. Spinning from one cinematic cliché to another, he eventually finds himself delivering a "dramatic" monologue consisting entirely of movie titles. It's very clever and funny stuff. In fact, at its best - which is to say most of the time - Completely Hollywood (abridged) has the kind of hallucinatory sideways comic logic that you find in, say, the films of the Marx Brothers or the early albums of The Firesign Theatre.
This kind of comedy is, by the way, harder to perform that it might appear. Anyone who has ever seen a sub-par production of a Reduced Shakespeare Company script knows how deadly this sort of thing can be without brisk pacing and a proper sense of timing. Performing their own material, the members of the RSC have all of that, along with enough energy to light several small cities. Here's a big vote of thanks to Steve Woolf and the Rep for giving us a chance to see them in action.
The late W.C. Fields once remarked that he didn't know whether or not he ever got the DTs because "it's hard to tell where Hollywood ends and the DTs begin". To find out just what he meant and have a couple hours of solid laughs in the process, call the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis box office at 314-968-4925 for tickets to Completely Hollywood (abridged). The show runs through November 13th [2005] in the studio theatre.
Should you miss it, however, don't despair. There's a sequel - sort of - because the next main stage production at the Rep is All the Great Books (abridged) directed by co-author Reed Martin. It opens on November 30th. Think of it as a time-delayed double feature and just keep repeating to yourself, "it's only a movie".
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